Or Scream
by snappleducated
Summary: But you know, I am equal parts victim and villain, and you are the hero of all my nightmares, my most beautiful bruise. — Gemma/Ty


**ENTITLED**: Or Scream  
**FANDOM**: Stolen: A Letter To My Captor  
**LENGTH**: 1,500 words  
**SETTING**: five years later  
**DISCLAIMER**: Bro, please.  
**NOTES**: SNAP SNAP I'M BACK! TIME TO DO SOME DAMAGE! Fun fact: television has stripped down my attention span to the extent that I can only focus on something for about ten minutes. Flicking between this doc and two others. One is fanfic of the highest garbage-caliber, as shoujo heroes stumble their way to second base. The other is an essay about how _Twelfth Night_ should be staged with a focus on interracial relations and family dynamics. Also, I'm watching _Hannibal_ and a _Ni No Kuni_ walkthrough. Like, I have finally become that guy who has fifty television screens going at the same time. I'm glad we had this chat. It's probably time to check my Facebook.  
**SUMMARY**: But you know, I am equal parts victim and villain, and you are the hero of all my nightmares, my most beautiful bruise. — Gemma/Ty

* * *

I know the color blue. All its shades, all its hauntings. Blue, the color of sadness, of sideways glass, the hottest sky. The color of ghosts. But you would know all about that. You know all the things I say, all the things I think. Sometimes, I can't keep it all straight. What I imagined, what I've pretended. The things I made up to make things easier, the things I was told but never remember happening.

Were you really so beautiful?

I remember, the sick sweetness of you, sticking to my teeth. Chocolate and coffee, mixed with too much sweetener. When I was eighteen, I tried absinth poured over a tablespoon of sugar. Seventy percent alcohol. I couldn't swallow it quick, like a shot. It stuck in my mouth, while I crunched on every crystal, gagging. I asked for another.

I remember, going to university, and choosing to live in a dorm, and my parents moved just like you said they would. A bigger, better house, with lots of windows, lots of light. I am afraid of wide-open spaces.

Sometimes, when I first wake up, I like to cross my arms, and slide my hands along my sides and back, into the hollow of my waist and between the grooves of my ribs. I pretend that my hands are yours. I dream you burying me in the desert. I dream you naked. I dream your mouth against my leg, sucking poison from the snake bite, only the wound gets higher every time, and you move from near my ankle to the shuddery, tender bit behind me knee, and then up my thigh and then—I don't know.

I drag my heels out of every nightmare.

I wondered, when they sold the house, how you would ever find me. I wondered if I wanted you to.

Most of all, I remember the way you looked at me, when they took you away. The medium-blue of hunger. My tongue stuck to the top of my mouth. I imagined you, wild you, locked in a room too small, getting paler every day. A small part of me thought it was fair. Let you try out the prisoner's face. Let _you_ know.

* * *

I remember, five years, too sweet, too slow. My life turned to molasses, my blood stuck like honey. Going nowhere.

I wrote things wrong. Poetry for my essays, fairytales for my dissertation. I was never good at looking at things the way everyone else wanted me to, seeing things as they ought to be seen. I slid through university. I slid into bed with a man I didn't know, he didn't look a bit like you. I thought it would be painful but it wasn't. It wasn't anything. I walked away not really caring about it, and a little upset that I was so indifferent.

My life, sinking like syrup. One time, I smoked in the alley just outside my apartment building. Looking up, the rooftops made the sky impossibly narrow. The safest I had ever seen.

I graduated. I got a job. Sometimes, when people asked me about my life, I forgot the details.

The day you got out, I cut my hair, and dyed it red. I thought it would make it harder for you to find me. I couldn't decide if I wanted to you look, until I flipped a coin. Spinning through the air, I watched it fall, and caught myself hoping you would. The next week, I went to the park you found me in. I even crawled behind the flower bushes. I couldn't find any fairies, but I never could in the past. You weren't there either.

* * *

I wondered if you would even recognize me. You did.

You always did like to watch me sleep.

I woke up, and there you were. I wondered, if maybe this was really it. If maybe this was the time you killed me. Me, the girl who failed you. The girl who locked you away. I looked at you, without screaming.

"I picked the lock," you said. You looked almost embarrassed about it. "I know you're probably mad about that. You'll say, I should have tried the bell. But I didn't want to wake you, and I wasn't sure you'd let me in."

I wanted to laugh at you, to yell. You'd always been like that, doing things all wrong and not knowing better. Taking things without asking.

You looked sick, all the sun and air stripped out of you. The little lines at your eyes and mouth were deeper, your hair darker, almost brown now. Your muscle looked harder now, a fighter's muscle. Your eyes were still a staring blue.

I asked, "Did you lock the door behind you?"

You said, "Yes."

Nobody coming to save me. Just like before. Just us. Always just us.

I sat up, the sheet sliding down my torso. You looked away, too hastily. I remembered you saying, you wanted me, once. That gawky, soft, sixteen year old body, only partly grown into. I wondered if you wanted me still, or if I wanted you.

I wanted to feel your skin.

I asked you, more soft than I had meant, "Are you here to hurt me?"

You flinched. "I could never hurt you."

"I couldn't be the girl you wanted me to be," I said, almost angry. Angry at you, or myself. I never knew. I never understood why.

"What are you talking about?" you asked me. And then you looked at me, at my ugly parts and good ones, and you saw what you had always seen. I felt naked in a way that went past my skin, the nudity I had tried to use against you as a weapon. My vulnerability was your guilt.

"I didn't save you," I said. The words came out shaking and cold. "They told me. You lied to me. You tricked me, manipulated me. I was a child and I didn't understand."

You waited. Your eyes were wet and soft, the way a baby's are. It hurt me, to see you like that. It hurt me, that I could never make you into the monster I needed you to be.

"But then I wondered, if they were doing the same thing. Everybody, telling me things. Telling me what to think."

"What do you think?"

"You're messed up," I whispered. And then I started to cry. I reached out my hand for you, like a child, begging, and then you were there. Your hands, scraping over my naked back, made me shiver, made me melt. I wanted to scream, but didn't want anyone to hear. I said, "And I can't figure out. If you're the one who messed me up too, or if it was everyone else, or maybe even myself. What should I do with you? How can I let you come here, stay with me, after everything? Why won't I _scream_?"

You shifted, as though you wanted to pull away. Maybe you thought I really would scream. The thought of you leaving terrified me. I grabbed your wrist. I pulled you down. You said, "You wore my ring to the trial. Where is it now?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. I bent, hunched over you, my forehead pressed to your chest. You touched my hair, and said, "I always knew. I was never mad, honest. I knew what you would have to say, why you did it. Thank you for wearing it, for letting me know. I never felt alone."

"Please," I said, but was unable to go on. I wanted to ask you for a thousand different things. Please, let's just go away. Please, don't leave me. Please, don't make me feel that I've failed you. Please, stop loving me. Please, stop talking. Please, hold me tighter. Please, leave me alone.

"It'll be alright," you said, again and again. "I'll make it alright. I promise. I'll make it right again."

And then, somehow, I fell asleep.

* * *

You were gone in the morning, I don't know why but guess I'll find out soon. Maybe you're in the Outback, building another house. Maybe you're in the city, getting a real job. Maybe, you've left me forever.

But I don't really think so.

Here's my letter to you, addressed to you, on my desk, where I know you'll see it. You'll see it when you walk through my rooms, while I'm out studying or buying a coffee. You'll see it when you peek through the window at night, to check on my dreams. You'll see it when no one else is looking, because that is the time when I can count on you to be watching me.

I want you to know, I was never the same. I want you to know, not a day goes by that I don't think of you, and you've messed me up so bad I cannot separate love from fear anymore. When I eat strawberries, I shudder.

So here is your letter, another thing you have taken.


End file.
